Wake Me Up When We're Dead
by montparnassee
Summary: Tick, Tock, Brook is Dead, make room for your Master. Now Jim is Dead and Gone, while Brook lives On. But not for Long, Jim commands, not. for. long. Braintrauma Jim fic, I promise the capitalization isn't as weird. Brook falls prey to Jim. Dark.


My eyes fly open as I jerk awake, clinging to the sheets for dear life. _We're ba-ack. _And so they are. I had thought I had been alone. Indeed, I had been for seven years. I'm almost grateful. Almost. I know I shouldn't be, I know I should be terrified, but for the first time in seven years, I can't feel the deep fear that normally penetrates my body. I feel lighter. Much lighter.

Or rather, I feel darker. I _have _missed this. Very, very much. I close my eyes, tilt my head back, and relax, listening. Their music is calling me, and I'm so close to slipping away.

And then the blackbird crows, and my eyes fly open again, and I'm clawing, and I'm screaming, and I'm fighting. Because the only thing that can shatter the illusion is the blackbird. I have to get away. I can't go back there, not again, not again. I wake up and I know nothing but pain. It hurts, and I hurt, and I can't remember anything.

But I know. I know without a doubt that everytime I cross over, I get that much closer to never coming back. I'm too close to be safe.

The next time I wake up, I feel odd. Everything looks normal - except something's wrong, and I can't place it. After concentrating, I decide. The colors have shifted. They're either brighter or darker. It isn't right. Nothing's right. I sit up, glancing around.

It's absolutely silent. This isn't good. At all. I climb out of bed cautiously, half expecting my floor to be liquid. No such luck. I don't drown. Everything seems to be in place, except my phone was missing. Did I knock it off during the night? Guess it doesn't matter, anyway. I don't need it. Mom never answers her phone.

I feel like everything flickers. Maybe I just blinked.

When I opened the door, everything came crashing down. Metaphorically, although if I took one wrong move it would soon become a literal statement. Ahead of me is a seemingly endless wooden corridor. The floor is a dusty brown - both in color, and with actual dust. The roof is slanted. I think I'm in an attic. It makes sense - light is streaming in through the small circular windows, lighting up my path. Over my head, there's all kinds of things. Cameras, and dresses, fishing equipment, canoes. It's like a whole world.

But it isn't the world I want, nor the one I'm searching for. No, let me rephrase that. It isn't home, but it also isn't the _right _world. I don't know what I'm looking for. But this is not it. I start to walk, determined to get out of this passage. I don't seem to have moved an inch - what is ahead is still exactly the same. But behind me, my door is far away. I know I can't turn back. That would be too simple.

I walk for hours. I should be thirsty by now, but I'm not. Am I dreaming? No. This is real. But twisted. Facts aren't facts here. And I realize it. What I'm missing. Nothing is the same. And I do believe that.. Yes. It has to be. What I accept becomes true. When I realize I should be thirsty, I become thirsty.

The only problem is this: how do I stop observing, and instead create? I feel as if I should have read something about this, some abstract paragraph, or heard some distant lyric that helps me. This isn't some horribly-written book or cheesy movie though, and I am alone. Frustrated, I close my eyes, and promptly slam nose-first into something. My eyes fly open - no they _don't_, that's a cliche. Do your eyes actually 'fly open'? No. It's not an immediate reaction.

I've hit a door. Grabbing it before it can slip away, I force it open. Not that difficult. Not that difficult at all, seeing _it's unlocked. _I step through.

I'm not sure what happened next. But when I wake up, I know there's no way this is the room I walked into. I'm in another hall, same as before, except I can see the end, and there isn't a door.

Well, there isn't a door on either end, to be specific. There are plenty of doors to either side of me, though. The lighting is white and bright, fluorescent. The walls and floors are also a sterile white. Oh. A hospital. Absolutely wonderful. Absolutely _wonderful. _This becomes even more cliche by the minute, but surprisingly, cliche is still terrifying when you're in the situation. I'm not quite sure if my life is actually in danger, or if this is just some screwed-up dream. Maybe it's a combination of both.

To be honest, I don't care. I've been _here _before, even though I've never been here. And the important thing is getting out, and I don't know how to go about doing that. I've done it before, though. I know I must have, so I should be able to figure it out now, too.

Nothing left to do but open the doors, although I had an irrational fear of doing that. Don't know why, but at that point in time, I would have rather sat in the hall for an eternity than start opening doors.

I've been here before - in my other life, maybe. My normal life. When can I go home? I want to go home. As I open each door, I see myself.

There I am - I'm being born. I quickly slam that door. The next one I open is me, two years old, when my Father dropped me by accident. I can feel a small twitch in my arm, where I fell.

No matter the order I open them, the doors still display my life in order. As I move farther along, I start to feel the pain, and I cannot shut each door quickly enough. It's like an addiction - I can't stop myself from opening each door. Here I am now, sixteen. I've gotten in my first big fight - it wasn't about what I did, it was about who I was, and _it hurts. _

And now I'm twenty and just starting into this dangerous business, and I've been shot, and I can still remember how bad it hurts, so it hurts me know just the same. I almost collapse in pain before I can get the door shut, and then it fades away.

Before I know it, I'm there again, and _everything hurts. _It's an earth-shattering pain, it makes my vision flash white, and I'm on the floor, curled up against myself. I can feel who I am slip away, only to be replaced by someone else, someone I loathe, someone who I only wish to die, so I can come back again.

And I scream.

Now I'm in a room, it's white, and I know I'm back in the hospital. Not that hospital, although I'm still shaking. I'm going to have a lifetime fear of hospitals now. I think I'm in the mental ward - yes, yes I am.

I'm alive, I've escaped, but the voices are still there, still beating on the inside of my skull. The loudest is his, and he hates me, oh, he hates me. He wants nothing more than to destroy me, utterly and.. completely.

No matter how hard I fight, I'm not going to win. Soon, I'll lose myself, just like _he _lost _himself, _and I'll be gone. For good. He's stronger than me. I can't come back.

So I write these notes to him. I write, and I hope, and I pray.

Because if I can't help him, nobody can.


End file.
